Friday, October 29, 2010

GPS #3

I wasn't sure if we settled on a sketch for next month.  I voted for this one.  For some reason those 3 little squares just trigger all sorts of ideas about what to put on them.  But I'm open if you all  wan to pick the other one.  One thing you might want to check out if we do go with this sketch is the fantasticc samples of a similar card sketch over on the Clean and Simple blog.  It triggered even more ideas for those 3 little squares.  And as I wrote that it occurred to me that since this is the 3rd sketch maybe doing this one with the 3 squares is oh so appropriate!  Have I convinced you?  :-)

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

59 Days, 16 Hours & Counting


Can't believe how fast time is flying.  I've been wanting to use our Tuesday nights to make a few Christmas cards so I'd have a nice big stash when the time came to get them in the mail.  I've got about 12 done, 12 left from last year and need about 24 more with only 59 days, 16 hours counting (according to this cool Christmas Countdown web site I stumbled on: http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/xmas_cnt.htm).  I saw these 2 Mona made a couple of years ago from a stamp set we got as part of a card class we took.  I *Love* the one with the Santa button.  Cute, cute clean and simple design.  Will be using that for inspiration very soon! 

Friday, October 22, 2010

The "Benign Essential Tremors" Technique :-)

Sometimes stamping with my shakey hands is quite fun.  I found this really cute one-layer card idea from my favorite blog Simplicity.  The challege was to use a border stamp.  I came up with this design:


Unfortunately I had 6 cards to make for my weekly family newsletter.  I thought the odds of getting 6 clean, crisp stamped images was not very high and I was right.  So rather than wasting paper, here's what I came up with to cover up the boo-boo's. 



Once again, the creative deviation is almost prettier than what I started out trying to do.  Have a good weekend.  Here's wishing that we all are able to find a little creative space among the chores and family obligations.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

GPS #2 - In Under the Wire

Well Val and I barely made the deadline for our 2nd sketch challenge.  But despite a crazy work schedule for Val and pure procrastination on my part we did manage to get our entries in. As a reminder, here's the link to the sketch.  Now check out what we made. . . .first the group shot and then the individual pics.  I'll have the next sketch posted tomorrow.

Mona's cards:




Val's card:


Julie's cards:




Tuesday, October 19, 2010

A Freebie - And It's Not Even Friday

Hi My Friends,

Found this fun freebie while surfing yesterday morning and wanted to share it.  It's a PDF fiile that has some really cute labels.  She shows them used for food gifts but I'm thinking that you could also use them on cards. 

Here's the web site:  http://www.scrapngal.com/ which has instructions on how to add text to the labels.  And here's the PDF.

I finally got my cards for the challlenge done last night with little time to spare.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute.  Actually I think the adrenaline of the fear of not getting them done really helped my creativity.  Looking forward to seeing the cards tonight.  And I've got 2 new sketches I'm bringing with me.  Thought we should have a little choice.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Thank You X 2

Thank You (part 1) Mona for jumping on our blog and posting one of your cool cards.   I loved it - both the blog entry and the card.  I was talking to my Mom on Thursday night and she was having problems getting to the blog.  So as I was walking her through it I said "What do you see" and she started reading about Megan's boyfriend.  I said "No, I don't think you're on the right site.  Let me get there with you" and then much to my surprise I saw our site with a card I didn't recognize.  I squeeled with delight!!!!  Mom was very impresed with the card.  And Val and I thought we detected a similarality to this month's card sketch??  I think we're in trouble if all of Mona's are this cute.

And the Thank You part 2 is another cute card Mona made me earlier this year.  I love the ribbon, button, border punch and simple sewing on the card.  She's also got such a way with combining color and pattern.

See you tomorrow night for the big reveal of GPS Sketch #2.  Is everyone ready?  We shall see !!!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

My first blog


this is a card for Maygan's boyfriend.  He rides a Harley so I just had to make a motorcycle themed card.  I've also been dying to use the metallic paper we made using Val's Cuttlebug embossing folder last year.  I found the ribbon at Scrapbook Hidaway - it was so perfect in color for card.  I've had the brads for quite a while and have used them on several masculine cards.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Serene Moments

This is the CAS (Clean And Simple) card I made for this week's family letter.  I broke in my Serene Serandade solutions cartridge.  What fun!  I have to admit though that this was the first time I've tried the layers and I was a little confused about how to cut out  the pieces.  And with it being a solutions cartridge it didn't have the nice little book that shows you how to press the combination of feature buttons with the key pad.  But after about 3 attempts I got it.  Would still like have more time to play around with options and explore all that's possible - maybe on our next holiday.  But overall I was happy with how it turned out.  Used a cute acrylic border stamp I got way back when we went to Ben Franklins and a new acrylic sentiment stamp I just got last week.  It was nice and convenient that they were both acrylic as I could mount them on the same block and make sure they lined up OK.  Looking forward to Tuesday night and trying to get a few more Christmas cards done.

Friday, October 8, 2010

A Little Inspiration

October 19th is not that far away. . . .That's the date of our next Show & Tell for the Gal Pal Sketch Challenge #2.  Val and I were talking this week about maybe using part of the weekend to try to get our creative juices flowing for this challenge.  I understand that Mona - our super achiever :-) - already has one or two made with a few more designs rolling around in her head.  Since we can't see hers until the 19th, here's a little sample that might help get us started.  It's not my card - just one I found posted on the CPS site where the sketch came from.  Have a good weekend and Happy Papercrafting!!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Fun Font

I'm not sure if you all are checking the Free Font Friday web site but last week there was a really cute one called "Card Starters 2".  It's basically a sentiment tied to each letter.  I used "Q" (Just a Note) on this week's letter to family.  Since I was in a hurry this week because of my trip to Yellowstone, it was a quick way to dress up the front of the cardstock.  Changed the color to something for fall and then surrounded it with a text box.  Kind of cute for 2 minutes of work, huh?!  Hope you check out the font if you already haven't.  It will be posted until Oct. 7th.